Manuscripts and Old Books
University Library of Bologna owns over 11,000 manuscripts (of which many are loose, miscellaneous sheets) and about 115,000 old editions, comprising 1021 incunaboli and 14950 16th Century editions.
This immense bibliographic heritage is the result of the classifying and ordering of many collections deriving from a succession of bequests, donations and purchases over the centuries. The library has its origins in the collection of
Luigi Ferdinando Marsili (1658 – 1730), founder of the Institute of Science: it is made up of 146 manuscripts which document the count’s studies of Eastern Europe, oceanography, the natural sciences, classical antiquity, the military arts and numerous letters ( G.D. Cassini, E Manfredi and M. Malpighi feature among the correspondents).
Also a part of this heritage was Marsili’s collection of
oriental manuscripts, of which more than 400 were Arab, almost 200 Turkish, and a score or so Persian, and a notable
Map of Armenia by Eremia Ch’elepi K’eomiwrchiants.
The
Ulisse Aldrovandi collection (1522 – 1605) was assimilated into the Library in 1742. Composed of 3900 volumes including manuscripts (the greater part being the works of the Bolognese naturalist himself) and printed books, it could not be considered purely scientific in character, but the collection does reflect the extremely varied interests of the scholar.
The works, dating back mainly to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, also take in more than 50 incunaboli, of which special mention should be made of the rare edition of the Epistola de insulis nuper repertis by Christopher Columbus in 1493. Of particular merit are the 18 volumes of
watercolour plates depicting plants, flowers, fruits, animals and “monsters”. Together with the Aldrovandian collection the library was also enriched by the addition of the Cospian collection, and the renowned fifteenth century
Mexican ritual calendar, painted on deerskin.
Cardinal Filippo Maria Monti (1675 – 1754) and shortly afterwards, Benedict XIV (1675 – 1758), gave to the Institute of Sciences their lavish collections, composed respectively of 11,000 volumes, mainly printed works, and including theological and philosophical texts, opera on canon law and bibliographies, and 25,000 volumes including 450 hand-written works. The library of Benedict XIV is distinguished by the precious
bindings, characterized by the Lambertinian Coat of Arms, certain incunaboli (prominent among which is an edition of the Magonza Latin Bible of 1462) and many sumptuously decorated manuscripts, including an
illuminated psalter from the thirteenth century Bolognese school, some
books of Hours and
breviaries and an
Armenian evangeliary bound in silver filigree.
As regards the printed books, the collection contained many books from the sixteenth century, even if seventeenth and eighteenth century editions do predominate. In addition to donations and the acquisition of numerous private collections (Bonfiglioli, Zambeccari, Sbaraglia, Beccari, Amadei, Zanetti) it is worth pointing out the absorption of the monastic collections first suppressed in Napoleonic times, and later on, after the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy.
The works thus incorporated into the Library, made up chiefly of manuscripts, were remarkable both for their consistency and their quality. For example, from the Monastery of San Domenico comes the famed Hebrew codex of
Canon Medicinae of Avicenna, with miniatures from the Ferrara school, while from the Monastery of San Salvatore we have, among other things, the oldest manuscript owned by the Library, a Lattanzio from the sixth century, in uncial script, and a Hebrew incunable on parchment, mistaken for a manuscript and located as such.
Other resources of note are those relating to the writings and correspondence of Marcello Malpighi (acquired in 1834), the library of the polyglot Giuseppe Mezzofanti, the letters of Pietro Metastasio, and the more recent acquisitions, particularly of records and collections of letters. Conspicuous in this respect are the archives of the jurist Pietro Ellero (1833 – 1933), the correspondence of Vittorio Lugli (1885 – 1968), the Battaglini collection (regarding the history of Rimini), two collections of the letters of Benedetto XIV, the correspondence of Quirico Filopanti, and the autographs of Carducci, Pascoli, Malpighi and Bertoloni.
Special reference should also be made to the collection of 58
papyri in Greek and Latin harking back to the Ptolomaic, Roman and Byzantine periods, acquired in 1930 from a Cairo antiquarian.